Anyway, this is gonna be a pun one, folks. I hope I get a few Snickers out of y’all. Originally nicknamed Coco by his siblings due to his apparent resemblance to one of the characters on the Cocoa Krispies cereal box, Covelli would not be nicknamed Coco in earnest until he started playing AA baseball. His team had players fill out a questionnaire to get to know one another, and C. Loyce Crisp listed Coco as his nickname on the form. His teammates, thinking the sweet nickname was funny, had it put up on the scoreboard during a game. The nickname stuck like M&M’s (or Smarties, if your name’s Lavitt) to your fingers on a hot summer day, and he’s been Coco Crisp ever since. I guess since they’re still calling him that, it’s pretty clear that people haven’t milked the nickname for all it’s worth yet.

Mark Grace wishes he could grow hair like that. Excellent ‘do!

Anyway, onto Coco’s baseball career. It’s really a shocker, given the chocolatey nickname, that he didn’t end up throwing on big league Mounds across the nation. Although not an incredible player, Crisp has put up good numbers in 12 big league seasons, amassing over 1300 hits, 100 homers, and nearly 300 stolen bases. He’s also a one time World Series champion and has led the league in stolen bases and sacrifice hits one time each.

Coco has also been involved in some interesting incidents in his career. He was once almost run over by the Mariners’ mascot, the Mariner Moose, while the Moose was driving around the field on his ATV between innings. Coco had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit. Does that make him one of the Three Mooseketeers?

Coco also charged the mound during a 2008 game, sparking a bench-clearing brawl. In the brawl, he ended up breaking the pitcher into 750 Reese’s Pieces. Kidding, kidding…but I’m sure he wasn’t feeling any Almond Joy when he was suspended 7 games (reduced to 5 on appeal) for his antics.

Coco is of Afro-Puerto Rican descent, with a touch of Italian ancestry. He is married and has three children.

Also, I am posting a link to this story on The New Haven Ravens Alumni Team page on Facebook. It will follow a story on there about the retirement of probably the most accomplished ex-Raven of all time, possible future Hall-of-Famer Todd Helton. I never did meet him, but saw him play many times here.

Sadly the Ravens were sold and moved away after the 2003 season. I still miss them. Oh, and correction, it was 2002 when Coco played for the Ravens. Dee Haynes was one of several players who stayed with us in our role as host family during the Ravens 10-year tenure.

“. . . like the Beatles’ milestone white album, the untitled ‘Coco’ Crisp post is a conceptual masterpiece that will set the direction of Funny Names posting for many weeks to come . . .”

“. . . the enigmatically untitled ‘Coco’ Crisp post is a tabula rasa, a blank canvas upon which the reader re-encounters the forgotten candy wrappers of childhood and reassembles these fragments into a startling projection, a cacaphonous kaleidoscope of sugar-coated Coco Crispiness . . .”

“. . . the candy bar references fall like artillery, sometimes blunt, sometimes oblique, always with a sly postmodern wink that we are in on the joke . . .”

“. . . this celebration of one of baseball’s lesser known masters is also a pointed indictment of our mass consumption culture and the terrible toll its flood of oversweetened products exacts on our children . . .”

Well, before they totally jump the shark, I hope at least once to take it to the next level: write blurbs for my own blurbs, and go out in a blaze of gratuitous, self-indulgent, self-referential glory.

That’s awesome! “. . . this celebration of one of baseball’s lesser known masters is also a pointed indictment of our mass consumption culture and the terrible toll its flood of oversweetened products exacts on our children . . .”

Amb, regarding your “Sweet (Marie)” comment (which I can’t figure out how to reply to directly), I’ll just say that if Rob needs a woman who can keep up with (or even come close to contending with) him on esoteric baseball trivia, he’ll have a pretty sparse dating life. I hope that’s not one of his requirements. That said, my dear, I’m glad to see your public declaration of loyalty. Involving Rob could make things very awkward 🙂

Hahaha yes it could! That is not one of my requirements. I do hope to meet someone who is baseball-tolerant and at least knows the rules though! it would be difficult to date a girl who isn’t down for a game at least once in awhile.

Awesome! You sound like a diehard. 😉 Are you familiar with the Seattle Pilots? They were a Major League team for one year before moving to Milwaukee. Their biggest claim to fame is being a major subject of sports’ first real tell-all book, Ball Four, by Jim Bouton.

The Mariners were the parent club of the New Haven Ravens c. 1999-2000. I have a Mariners jacket given to me by ex-major league outfielder Henry Cotto who was the hitting coach for the Ravens those two years. Henry is now a roving minor league instructor for the SF Giants.

Woo hoo–great name! And I love that it follows my Fruity Pebbles food for fun post so closely 🙂 We are so cornering the cereal market here. And that is a great ‘do, yes. A+ for the food puns, Rob. And for ending the post as only you can 😉